


What Matters

by doublejoint



Series: peachtober 2020 [8]
Category: Ouran High School Host Club - All Media Types
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:08:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26923387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doublejoint/pseuds/doublejoint
Summary: Kaoru, Kyoya, and assigned meaning
Relationships: Hitachiin Kaoru/Ootori Kyouya
Series: peachtober 2020 [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1953295
Comments: 2
Kudos: 34





	What Matters

**Author's Note:**

> #peachtober day 8: Prize

Kyoya’s ability to focus one eye on the task at hand, and the other on several milestones in the future, is not something Kaoru envies, per se. It is something he admires, maybe, in the awe-struck and half-fearful way he admires so much about Kyoya. It comes from the same place, all those parts of Kyoya, managing and planning and constructing his own image, down to the pixel in a resolution greater than any screen could hope to contain; the response comes from the same place in Kaoru that all of these responses do.

It’s like, to use a very tired metaphor, chess; Kyoya’s better than the AI at thinking ahead and anticipated. Contingency plans, the kind they learn about in class, the kind they’ve all learned about from their parents in snatches of business talk, preparing for the known and even the unknown (well, really, semi-unknown). It’s a delicate balance, but one Kyoya strikes, again and again, smoothly making his way through the hazardous obstacle course to the prize at the end.

(They all know what that is.)

* * *

Kaoru finds his father--no mean feat, but maybe he wants to be found--sitting in the gazebo in the garden with a cup of coffee and his laptop. He raises an eyebrow when Kaoru drops down into the seat across from him, but says nothing, typing away, a program or a spreadsheet or an email.

“Hi,” says Kaoru.

“Hi, Kaoru,” says his father. 

“Did you like high school?”

The sudden question does not catch his father too off-guard, He takes another sip of coffee, types what is most likely the end of a sentence, and then pauses. 

“I suppose. I met your mother in high school, after all.”

“...Huh.”

He smiles, as if he’s reading Kaoru’s mind--uncanny. That must be where he and Hikaru get it from.

“A lot of people say that when you look back at high school it doesn’t really matter, or the things that seemed important back then really weren’t all that important. And I suppose, to a degree, that’s true. But you shouldn’t devalue the things you learn or the people you meet.”

Kaoru squints into the sun as the cloud that’s been covering it drifts to the side. That’s not exactly the answer to his question, nor is it exactly the answer to the questions the other one was loaded with, invisibly dragging it down. But the answer’s for him to puzzle out, cryptic as his father always likes to be. A game. That, too, apparently runs in the family.

* * *

The thing is, all the things that people say or pretend or really do believe aren’t important after high school--your class rank, being class representative, what clubs you joined, exactly how many points you’d scored on whichever test--are important for Kyoya, the way every single other thing is. Yes, he’ll get into his choice of university and medical school after that; yes, he’ll be polite and rub elbows with all the other children of the elite, make the right connections to make his parents and their parents not dissatisfied.

There’s a difference, kids like them know (not all of them, but most of them, and all the spares and spares of spares especially) between a lack of outward dissatisfaction and approval, a gaping chasm to hell, a wide rupture in the ground. Kyoya’s brothers came before him and set the tone; Kyoya’s got to do the same thing, backwards, upside down, more effortless, to even have a shot at being the heir, the prize his father dangles ahead of him and could yank away at any second--Kyoya’s all-too-aware that the playing field is tilted and unfair, and it’s all he can do to climb up in frictionless shoes.

So, yes, every answer on every test, every second of alertness in every class, every ledger in the club account, every artificial smile to a customer, counts. To falter, to answer incorrectly, to answer correctly without confidence, knocks him off course, but staying the course is not enough. 

Kaoru gets stressed just looking at him sometimes.

(And he is looking, always; people rarely follow his gaze, or when they do, they place it where they want it to be, past or around Kyoya, or as if Kaoru’s staring right through him and spacing out. He lets them carry the assumption.)

* * *

Every moment counts, and Kyoya still manages to skim off some time for Kaoru, like foam from the top of a latte. It’s always a mystery what exactly it’s cutting into--his grades are still impeccable, his accounting still balanced, his attention still perfect, his notebooks filled with exact distillations of what he needs to learn. It’s like he can stretch time out in his hands like dough, molding the shape of it, creating pockets.

(Maybe this is Kaoru’s dumb relationship-brain speaking; that’s what Hikaru says, but Hikaru doesn’t know and Kaoru doesn’t feel like explaining, anyway.)

Kaoru pulls Kyoya down by his tie, not yanking hard enough to pull the knot tighter (that had been mildly amusing when he’d done it, if also mildly embarrassing) but enough to get his point across. He looks into Kyoya’s eyes, not with a particularly smitten gaze (not that he isn’t smitten, not that Kyoya doesn’t know) but just to look. Kyoya lets him. The sound of the second hand on Kyoya’s watch echoes in Kaoru’s ears, one, two, three, until he loses count, without losing interest, and goes ahead and kisses him. 

Kyoya, Kaoru supposes, is good at biding his time. Not at waiting; that implies a passivity and a patience that Kyoya really doesn’t have, but of a strength he does. 

“Okay,” Kaoru says, “Get back to your homework.”

Kyoya watches him go, adjusting his tie and the cuffs on his jacket. Kaoru always likes to leave Kyoya wanting more--he can handle thinking about that and calculus at once. (And the ten million other things on top of it.)

Kaoru won’t say it aloud, because Kyoya doesn’t talk about it, but, fair or not, the prize is Kyoya’s to win. Kaoru’s confident in that much.


End file.
